1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for connecting data of documents and in particular, to a technology for connecting data of documents including a copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern in regard to security, in an image forming device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming device recently includes a hard disc (HDD) as standard equipment. Therefore, data of a document scanned by a user or data of a document transmitted as PDL print data from a PC or the like are stored in the HDD of the image forming device. In consequence, the user can reprint the document or connect (edit) the documents with each other later. On the other hand, since anybody can save or reprint documents easily, there is growing concern about a risk of information leak and a security function for coping with it. Therefore, in an output matter from the image forming device, there is introduced a system in which at the time of operating the image forming device, for example, copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern data are combined to require a user certification, or a person, time and a device in regard to the document printed are specified so as to be capable of tracing a route of the leak later.
Copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern technologies have become remarkable as security measures against information leak or the like and therefore, even in the image forming device, as in the case of other information equipment, the copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern data is used to embed various pieces of security information into a print document.
As described below, a unit for restricting and preventing an impermissible copy operation using such copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern data are already realized and are generally used by a user.
(1) group and person identification by user names and passwords,
(2) tracing by the embedding of print equipment ID,
(3) tracing by the embedding of print time, and
(4) tracing by the embedding of user name.
As described above, most of the security of printed documents is realized by use of the copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern technology. Therefore, upon editing data of the document, it is also required to consider consistency of the copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern information. When documents including copy-forgery-inhibited-patterns are connected with each other without paying attention to this respect, the security information (copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern content) is changed at a boundary of the connection. In consequence, the convenience for a user may deteriorate or the user may become confused.
For example, in a case where three documents each having certification information with a different name and a different password are saved in an image forming device, a new document produced by connecting the three documents contains three kinds of the certification information, which are supposed to be changed at the boundary of each document.
In a general scan function as a security function, it is confirmed whether or not copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern data in regard to the security are embedded inside the scanned image. When the certification information is found, a print operation after scanning is stopped to require a user to input the certification information. When the certification is established, the printing is started and when the certification is not established, the printing processing is cancelled. In such a security system, in the connected document described above, the printing operation is forced to be stopped at the connection boundary of each document to require a user to carry out the certification processing. Therefore, since the user can not be away from the image forming device until the printing is completed after starting with the printing operation, it is inconvenient for the user.
Therefore, the present invention provides a unit for merging and reproducing the copy-forgery-inhibited-pattern information retained at each page unit upon carrying out the document connection from a plurality of documents. Further, an object of the present invention is for a user originally having authority to be capable of carrying out a copy operation without deteriorated convenience of the copying, while maintaining security similar to that before the connecting.